The show shouldn't go on

Out of respect for Japanese, World Figure Skating Championships should have been canceled

March 24, 2011|By Philip Hersh | On International Sports

My first comments on the fate of the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships, published just after skating officials blindly insisted the event would take place in Tokyo as planned despite an already obvious catastrophe in Japan, maintained there should be no worlds in Japan during March.

Three days later, when the scale of the suffering the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused became more staggering, I said the event should be canceled out of respect for the Japanese people and as a memorial to their growing numbers of dead.

Since then, while seeing my reporting of the International Skating Union's efforts to reschedule the event in Japan or at an alternate site, some readers asked if that coverage reflected a change of opinion.

Now that the relocation issue is over, with the ISU announcing Thursday the worlds will take place April 24 - May 1 in Moscow, here is the answer:

The event should have been canceled.

The ISU's decision is nice for the athletes who have earned places at worlds and have trained hard to perform at their best. It is nice they will get a chance to compete at their most significant event of the season, and it should be covered.

Russia was the most logical choice of six candidates to be substitute host, including one from the United States, because of Moscow's hotel capacity, proposed arena, international airports and the financial support Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised Tuesday.

But the event has been rendered utterly insignificant by the devastation in Japan, where it was supposed to be taking place this week, where it would have had special meaning to a country passionate about the sport since Midori Ito became its first world champion in 1989. Having to give up the worlds to another country, although hardly consequential in the big picture, is another painful circumstance for Japan to bear.

Some have reminded me that World Series games took place in New York less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that the 1972 Munich Olympics continued (shamefully, I would say) after the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

While it is senseless to compare catastrophes to make a moral judgment on how life should go on, one must note again the scope of what Japan is enduring: nearly 10,000 dead, more than 16,000 still missing, tens of thousands still in emergency shelters, millions threatened by unstable nuclear reactors.

There is nothing immoral or intrinsically insensitive in athletes' and fans' desire for the worlds to go on. I respect the views of those like U.S. champion Alissa Czisny who gave well-reasoned arguments for having the event.

It still would have shown greater sensitivity to cancel the meet.

There should have been a void in skating's record books, empty lines for the worlds results in the year 2011, to reflect the void Japan will feel for years and likely decades to come.